Suspected US drone kills 3 al-Qaida men in Yemen SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Three al-Qaida militants were killed in a suspected U.S. drone strike in southern Yemen, Yemeni security officials said, the fourth such attack this week and a sign attacks from unmanned aircraft are on the upswing in the country. The officials said the three men were hit as they were riding in a Land Cruiser in el-Manaseh village on the outskirts of Radda in Bayda province. Dozens of local al-Qaida-linked fighters proteste...

Russian FM says Assad won’t go MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s foreign minister said Saturday that Syrian President Bashar Assad has no intention of stepping down and it would be impossible to try to persuade him otherwise. After a meeting with Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N.’s envoy for the Syrian crisis, Lavrov also said that the Syrian opposition risks sacrificing many more lives if it continues to insist on Assad leaving office as a precondition for holding talks on Syria’s future. As...

Indian gang-rape victim dies in Singapore hospital SINGAPORE (AP) — A young Indian woman who was gang-raped and severely beaten on a bus died Saturday at a Singapore hospital, after her horrific ordeal galvanized Indians to demand greater protection for women from sexual violence that impacts thousands of them every day. She “passed away peacefully” with her family and officials of the Indian Embassy by her side, Dr. Kevin Loh, the chief executive of Mount Elizabeth hospital, said in a stateme...

Putin signs anti-US adoptions bill MOSCOW (AP) — President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed a law banning Americans from adopting Russian children, abruptly terminating the prospects for more than 50 youngsters preparing to join new families and sparking critics to liken him to King Herod. The move is part of a harsh response to a U.S. law targeting Russians deemed to be human rights violators. Although some top Russian officials including the foreign minister openly opposed the...

Thatcher papers show fascination with Reagan visit LONDON (AP) — Few people keep Queen Elizabeth II waiting, especially when she has issued a personal invitation, but President Ronald Reagan managed to do so in 1982 without causing any lasting damage. It happened in 1982, when the Reagan White House failed to reply in a timely way to a personal invitation from the queen for the president and his wife Nancy to stay with her at Windsor Castle during a planned visit to England. Formerly Confident...

Venezuelans obsess: Will Chavez live or die? CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — He’s getting better. He’s getting worse. He’s already dead. The whole thing is a conspiracy and he was never sick in the first place. The obsessive, circular conversations about President Hugo Chavez’s health dominate family dinners, plaza chit-chats and social media sites in this country on edge since its larger-than-life leader went to Cuba for emergency cancer surgery more than two weeks ago. The man whose booming ...

Rebels besiege airports in northern Syria BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian rebels stepped up their siege of a government helicopter base and clashed with soldiers near Aleppo’s international airport on Friday, part of an effort to chip away at the air power that poses the biggest challenge to their advances against the regime of President Bashar Assad. That airborne threat came into stark relief the same day, when a government airstrike on a northern town killed 14 people — most of them women and...

North Korea says it has detained a US citizen PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea said Friday that an American citizen has been detained after confessing to unspecified crimes, confirming news reports about his arrest at a time when Pyongyang is facing criticism from Washington for launching a long-range rocket last week. The American was identified as Pae Jun Ho in a brief dispatch issued by the state-run Korean Central News Agency in Pyongyang. News reports in the U.S. and South K...

Hot spots draw believers, but not doomsday As the sun rose from time zone to time zone across the world on Friday, there was still no sign of the world’s end — but that didn’t stop those convinced that a 5,125-year Mayan calendar predicts the apocalypse from gathering at some of the world’s purported survival hot spots. Many of the esoterically inclined expected a new age of consciousness — others wanted a party. But, in some places said to offer salvation from the end, fewer people sh...

Mexico’s Mayas face Dec. 21 with ancestral calm UH-MAY, Mexico (AP) — Amid a worldwide frenzy of advertisers and new-agers preparing for a Maya apocalypse, one group is approaching Dec. 21 with calm and equanimity — the people whose ancestors supposedly made the prediction in the first place. Mexico’s 800,000 Mayas are not the sinister, secretive, apocalypse-obsessed race they’ve been made out to be. In their heartland on Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, Mayas continue their daily lives, industr...

US commanders are upbeat on Afghan war progress KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — U.S. commanders are offering glowing reviews of their 2012 war campaign, upbeat assessments that could be interpreted as leeway for President Barack Obama to order another round of troop withdrawals next summer. Obama faces a tension between calls by Democrats and even some Republicans to wind down the war more quickly and the military’s desire to avoid a too-fast pullout that might squander hard-won sacrifices. U.S. ...

Conservative party favored as Japanese vote TOKYO (AP) — Japanese voted Sunday in parliamentary elections that were expected to put the once-dominant conservatives back in power after a three-year break — and bring in a more nationalistic government amid tensions with big neighbor China. Major newspapers were predicting the Liberal Democratic Party, led by the hawkish former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, would win a majority of the seats in the 480-seat lower house of parliament, although ...

With Chavez stricken, elections become crucial CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Hugo Chavez’s cancer has upended politics in Venezuela, transforming Sunday’s nationwide elections for state governors and legislators into a test of his legacy that could chart the country’s future in the uncertain months ahead. For the first time in his nearly 14 years in power, the charismatic, voluble Venezuelan president has been unable to actively participate in such a campaign. The question now hovering over th...

Oil rig arrives off Cuba for new exploration HAVANA (AP) — A Norwegian-owned platform arrived in waters off Cuba’s north-central coast for exploratory drilling by the Russian oil company Zarubezhneft, authorities said Saturday, renewing the island’s search for petroleum after three failed wells this year. Drilling is to begin “in the coming days” and take six months, according to a notice published by the Communist Party newspaper Granma. The depth of the project was given as 21,300 feet...

Egyptians take quarrel over charter to the polls CAIRO (AP) — Egyptians took their quarrel over a draft constitution to polling stations Saturday after weeks of violent turmoil between the newly empowered Islamists and the mostly liberal opposition over the future identity of the nation. Regardless of the outcome, the heated arguments among voters standing in line signaled that the referendum over the contentious charter is unlikely to end Egypt’s worst political crisis since the revolution ...

Israeli election downplays Palestinian issue JERUSALEM (AP) — Peacemaking with the Palestinians, once the main issue by far in Israeli politics, has been strikingly absent from the campaign for next month’s general election. After years of public frustration with failed peace efforts, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s badly divided challengers are trying instead to tap the economic angst of the middle class and a widespread resentment of perks enjoyed by fervently devout Jews. Shelly Y...

Militants attack airport in NW Pakistan; 9 killed PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Suicide bombers armed with rockets attacked the military side of a Pakistani airport in the northwestern city of Peshawar Saturday, killing four civilians and wounding more than 30, officials said. Five militants also were killed. Peshawar is on the edge of Pakistan’s tribal region, the main sanctuary for al-Qaida and Taliban militants in the country. The city has frequently been attacked in the past few years, but Sa...

Government: Chavez may not be well by inauguration CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The government warned Venezuelans on Wednesday that ailing President Hugo Chavez may not be well enough after his fourth cancer-related surgery in Cuba to be inaugurated on Jan. 10. Moving to prepare the public for the possibility of more bad news, Vice President Nicolas Maduro looked grim earlier in the day when he acknowledged that Chavez faced a “complex and hard” process after his latest surgery. At the same time,...

NKorea hails launch despite risk of consequences PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea, though struggling to feed its people, is now one of the few countries to have successfully launched a satellite into space from its own soil. But leaders in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo immediately pushed for consequences over a rocket launch widely seen as a test that takes the country one step closer to being capable of lobbing nuclear bombs over the Pacific. The surprising, successful launch of a th...

Cheese first made at least 7,500 years ago LONDON (AP) — Little Miss Muffet could have been separating her curds and whey 7,500 years ago, according to a new study that finds the earliest solid evidence of cheese-making. Scientists performed a chemical analysis on fragments from 34 pottery sieves discovered in Poland to determine their purpose. Until now, experts weren’t sure whether such sieves were used to make cheese, beer or honey. Though there is no definitive test for cheese, Ric...